The invention relates to a press-fit contact and a method for producing said contact.
Press-fit contacts of this type are used for producing non-soldered, electrical contacts, wherein these in particular are pressed into plated-through bores in circuit boards.
A distinction is made herein between press-fit contacts with solid press-in regions and those with elastic press-in regions, wherein these regions are positioned in the respective bores once the contact is pressed in. Solid press-in regions have considerable disadvantages as compared to elastic press-in zones because of their low resilience. In particular, bores can easily be damaged when pressing in press-fit contacts with solid press-in zones, thus resulting in impairing the contact to be established.
Punching techniques in particular can be used for producing press-fit contacts with elastic press-in regions. Press-fit contacts of this type have two legs in the press-in region, which are positioned at a distance to each other.
The legs of the press-fit contacts are produced by punching lateral recesses into a solid material, wherein a correspondingly large material surface is needed for punching out the opening between the legs. Accordingly, the press-fit contacts produced in this way generally have a flat, planar shape. When inserting these contacts into the circular bores, two contact surfaces are obtained between the press-fit contact and the wall of the bore, which are essentially offset by 180° relative to each other. The contact surfaces are formed by the narrow sides of the press-fit contact.
Since the press-fit contact fits only with its narrow sides against the wall of the bore, it results in an insufficient electrical contact that is prone to interference, in particular caused by tolerances of the individual components.
Document 3,846,741 A describes press-fit contacts, which are inserted into bores of circuit boards, wherein these are produced by bending metal strips. In particular, a press-fit contact can be formed using two metal strips, placed one above the other, for which the lower ends are bent in such a way that they form spaced-apart legs that are subsequently inserted under pressure into the respective bores.
This method also results in the production of elongated press-fit contacts having a geometry that is adapted insufficiently to the circular cross section of the bores.